Dependant Variables
by MyraValhallah
Summary: Standing on Bad Wolf Bay Rose Tyler makes a choice as a result she ends up living out her time on the TARDIS once again, only now she's the Last of the Time Lords and the Doctor as the companion. He remembers nothing of their shared past while She must balance two sets of memories. Can she steer their story towards a better ending or is their journey's course set in stone?
1. Prologue: Rose's Choice

_**Hi everybody,**_

**_I've been reading a few of Doctor/Rose role reversal stories and this idea came to me from... well I'm not entirely sure where. It's role reversal with a twist._**

**_Full summary: On Bad Wolf Bay, Rose Tyler made a choice; the result of which was that she ends up living her journey with the Doctor out all over again, only this time she is The Wolf, the Last of the Time Lords. The Doctor- now human- plays her role in their love story. He is oblivious to this shared history while the Wolf remembers both lifetimes she is forbidden to go out of her way to alter the course of their story._**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. Doctor Who belongs to the BBC and the name 'The Wolf' belongs to fairytaleslayer, which I use with kind permission._**

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_**Prologue: Rose's Choice.**_

_(Pete's World: Norway, Local time 05/07/2012)_

The TARDIS materialized on the wet sand of Bad Wolf Bay, Jackie Tyler and the newly created copy of the Doctor led the way out of the ancient Gallifreyan vessel.

Jackie took one look at where they had landed and groaned in frustration. "Norway, _really?_ Fat lot of good this is, I'm going to have to call Pete, and he's doing the nursery run." She noticed the new Doctor's slightly quizzical look at this last point. "I was pregnant last time we were here, d'you remember? Well I had a baby boy."

"Oh brilliant," he grinned. "What's his name?"

"Doctor." said Jackie with an admirable poker face which the new Doctor apparently could not see through.

"Really?" he asked, sounding like a child allowed to open his presents the night before his birthday.

Jackie snorted. "No, you plum. We called him Tony."

By this time theactual Doctor, Rose and his newest companion, Donna, had emerged from the TARDIS.

"This is the parallel universe right?" she asked, with a slight edge of worry in her voice.

"You're back home." the older Doctor nodded.

"And the walls of the world are closing again," Donna put in. "Now that the reality bomb never happened the dimensions are reclosing." she grinned at the man beside her. "See, I really get this stuff now!"

"I can't go back now," Rose protested, weakly. "Not after all that time I spent trying to find you."

"You have to," the Doctor told her, gravely. "Because the cost of saving the universe this time was _him._" a brief gesture to the copy in a blue suit. "He's too dangerous to be left on his own. He committed genocide on the Daleks."

"_You_ made me." said the copy, defensively.

"Exactly," the first nodded, gravely. "You were born in battle…"

"So says the Killer of his Own Kind." a cool female voice put in.

All heads turned in the direction of the new comer. She was a tall woman of around forty with a head of wild light brown curls, restrained in a high ponytail. She was also dressed in a spacesuit.

"R-River?" Both the Doctor's stammered in perfect unison.

"Hello sweetie." the woman, River, smiled. "And sweetie."

"This is impossible," Donna stated, agape. "You're dead."

"Well yes." River nodded. "But I won't be here for long. I'm here with a proposition for Rose."

"M-me?" Rose stammered, she didn't know this woman, who was clearly someone of significance from the Doctor's future.

"You," River nodded, patiently. "You see, I'm not _really _River Song- I'm merely a projection of the good professor created by the TARDIS; but that's irrelevant really."

Rose blinked, and decided it might be easier to accept this situation rather than question it. "So this proposition…?"

River smiled. "Straight forward, I think you and I would have gotten on splendidly- once we got past the fact we're both in love with the same man."

"Wait what?" this from the Brown suited Doctor.

"Wake up," his copy rolled his eyes. "She knows our _name_. You know who she is."

"_Anyway,_" River said, loudly. "Rose, I want to offer you the chance to have the best of both worlds."

"You what?"

"I want to try something. If it is successful it will allow you to have forever with the man you love, _and_ allow you to retain contact with your human family."

"What?"

"Live out your journey with the Doctor again, only from the other side. You the Designated Driver, and _he _the wide eyed travelling companion."

"Rose no!" Both Doctors and Jackie cried.

Rose didn't seem to hear them. "Will we remember how things are meant to be?"

"_You_ will retain your memories." River nodded. "The Doctor however, will have to re_gain_ his."

"Rose, don't listen to her." Brown pleaded. "If you do this you'll lose yourself: you'll be a child of war, full of blood and anger and revenge. You'll be like I was when we first met- I love you too much to see that happen to you."

"I love you too," Rose told him. "You got better."

"Only because you made me better."

Rose placed her hand on his cheek, two pairs of brown eyes locking for what could be the last time. "And now you can do the same for me."

"But Rose, can't you see what he's giving you?" Donna asked plaintively, thoroughly on the original Doctor's side. "Tell her," this to the copy. "Go on."

"Rose, I don't just look like him, I think like him; have the same memories, thoughts, everything. Except I'm half human- I only have one heart."

Rose tore her gaze from the original Doctor's and looked at the copy askance.

"Which means that I won't regenerate. I only have one life, one that I could share with you."

"You'd grow old at the same time as me." It wasn't a question, nor was the thought of a human life with the Doctor unappealing. Rose let out a shuddering sigh. "River, if things don't turn out the way you hope, what then?"

"Then the time lines will revert, and things will progress as the Doctor would have them do. With none of you able to recall what transpired."

"With me looking after _him,_" Rose's gaze briefly found the metacrisis clone. "But what about the other one? What'll happen to him?"

"Spoilers." said River, with a meaningful look towards the Doctor by the TARDIS.

"Rose, I'll be alright." the original Doctor assured her. "I'm always alright. Same old life, last of the Time Lords, remember?"

"We both know that you _aren't _always alright though- you only say that when you're _not._" god she felt like crying. "And what if you weren't the last? She's offering me the chance to share that with you- and who knows…" one hand settled on her belly. "Maybe we could bring the Time Lords back?

"We weren't born that way." the Doctor told her. "Time Lords were essentially woven together from parent DNA."

"Then so be it," Rose retorted, stoutly. "Or are you saying that you don't want me?"

"Rose."

The way he said her name was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She'd never heard so much in the single syllable. The pain, the longing, the love. It was all the answer she needed.

"River," she said, voice little more than a whisper. "I want to try."

Somewhere in the multiverse a wolf howled.

Somewhere in the multiverse a storm raged.

And there on the wet sand of one universe's version of Bad Wolf Bay Rose Marion Tyler's world dissolved in a mess of golden light and a heartbreaking song.

~V~

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_**And that is the Prologue.**_

_**I find River really hard to write. I hope I did her justice.**_

_**Please feel free to leave a review, I'd love to know what you think so far.**_


	2. Chapter One: The Wolf

_**Hi guys.**_

_**Here I present a very short chapter, simply to introduce the woman that Rose has become 'The Wolf'. All subsequent chapters will be longer.**_

_**Thank you to everyone who has read, favourited and or followed this story.**_

_**Special thanks also to: The Eclectic Bookworm and ThatBigBlueBox for their lovely reviews**_

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_**Chapter One: The Wolf.**_

She was Rose Tyler, twenty six year old human being born on planet Earth in the late twentieth century.

She was The Wolf, nine hundred and some year old daughter of Gallifrey- Last of the Time Lords. Lone Survivor of the last great Time War which tore through the universe which she called home, leaving naught but destruction in its wake.

It was, The Wolf reflected, once she had gotten past the pounding headache which followed her latest regeneration a very strange thing to hold two sets of memories, both of which were equally real, and equally your own.

The wolf fully remembered growing up on the Powell Estate in London with a widowed mother, and meeting a wonderful, mad man who travelled through time and space in a blue box which was bigger on the inside. She also remembered centuries of travel in a stolen museum piece, often alone but sometimes taking on a passenger or two and showing them the wonders of the wider universe. She had been alone, except from the TARDIS, for some time now- drifting in the time vortex as the part of her which was simply Rose Marion Tyler came to terms with what she had agreed to.

Once upon a time Rose had scoffed when the man she loved spoke of his superior Time Lord mind, now though, she understood exactly what he meant. How on earth had poor Donna Noble managed to remain sane for even a moment taking a Gallifreyan mind into her human brain. The new Last of the Time Lords, the Wolf understood the periods of melancholy that the Doctor had suffered in both of the incarnations she had known first hand; even though he had tried to hide it beneath his boyish charm and energy in his tenth form. Rose Tyler alone could not comprehend the silence, the isolation, that was a Time Lord mind without the constant comforting background hum of other consciousnesses which came of being a member of a telepathic race.

It was a source of great comfort to the Wolf to dream of the days to come when the Doctor would return to her. When the TARDIS' experiment was a success and she and the Doctor would truly be equals and would be able to spend their lives together. The TARDIS even thought she might be able to find a way to break the curse of infertility that the children of Gallifrey had fallen under so many generations ago. The Wolf could live without bearing children- she remembered children from her life on Gallifrey before she stole the TARDIS, beloved but distanced from her when they returned from the Academy.

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It was always a bit of a shock to see herself in the mirror; no longer the pink and yellow Rose Tyler she still thought herself as. Over the years the Wolf had had a selection of very different faces and personalities which were, coincidentally, a vaguely semblent to the way the doctor looked and acted in the eight lives he had lived prior to their acquaintance. The TARDIS refused to comment on whether or not she'd had a hand in this- the wolf rather suspected she had.

When she'd stolen the TARDIS from the museum on Gallifrey she had been old, prim and schoolmarmish, though there had been a ready sense of humour lurking beneath the prudish exterior. After that she had been a tiny whirlwind and careless of her outward appearance in layers of mismatched clothing.

Then she had been tall and slightly aloof in deep purple satin, black wrap and a string of seed pearls, proud despite her exile the knowledge stolen from her mind by the Council.

Her fourth self had been chubby and with a edge of the motherly maiden aunt. She had been rather fond of knitting patchwork garments, and offering boiled sweets left, right and centre.

The next body likely couldn't have been more different. A perky young strawberry blonde with a high ponytail habitually dressed for tennis on 1940s earth, though she later came to the conclusion that the radish earrings might have been a mistake.

Sixth she had been something of a contradiction in terms- she had taken to dressing in starkly contrasting colours but had been abrupt and no nonsense in everything that she did.

Following that she had been slightly mad with wiry dark hair under a straw boater.

And then she was quiet, thoughtful and had favoured sober dark velvet and auburn curls which she had kept pinned to the back of her head.

Now though, in the wake of the Time War the Wolf, like the Doctor when Rose Tyler had met him in the basement of Henrick's, was weathered, the very child of war that her beloved had warned her she would become if she agreed to the TARDIS' plan. She was quite surprised at what she had regenerated into this time; having almost expected a female version of the Doctor as she first met him (big nose and ears included). Instead her first foray into the cavernous wardrobe, finally sick of the now ill fitting blue crushed velvet gown favoured by her previous self, had revealed a small woman with dark blue eyes, set in a forgettable sort of face. She had fine black hair which fell to her shoulder blades. The Wolf hummed in careless acknowledgement of her new appearance before turning her back on the full length mirror, stepping out of the now too long dress and too large shoes leaving herself in just the shift that she'd worn beneath the itchy material, she sidled off to find something new to wear.

~V~

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_**Next Time:**_ _**We meet the man that the Doctor has become and our story truly gets started.**_


	3. Chapter Two: Run

_***Creeps out of shadows and quickly sets down chapter before fleeing for life.***_

_**My goodness it's been far too long since I started this. I've rewritten this chapter about three times and it always came out far too close to the original episode, so I cut out a lot of the action. Future chapters will deviate more from the source material so will be longer.**_

_**Enjoy :)**_

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_**Chapter Two: Run**_

As a child James McCrimmon had had great plans. He had decided at the grand old age of four and a half that he would be a doctor. He would live in a large house and maybe have a pretty girlfriend. At the time he hadn't really cared about the girlfriend part, it had just seemed like something that a proper grown up would do.

Twenty seven years later found the thirty one year old James trudging through towards Henrick's department store for another night of watching nothing happen on the security cameras. James had gone to medical school and had been doing very well there, until a fellow student he had believed to be a friend had framed him for a prank which had gone horribly wrong- he had been lucky not to have been arrested for what happened and that rat bastard Harry had got off scot free.

"Hey Jimmy," John Smith, the guard on the door called out to him as he passed. "Got Wilson's lottery money 'ere…"

James rolled his eyes and took the envelope that John held out and sloped off towards the lift down to the electrician's lair in the basement.

"Wilson?" he called as he stepped out of the lift. "I've got your lottery money. Wilson?" He knocked on the door to Wilson's _office_, an old supply cupboard that the man had laid claim to when he had been hired. "Look, Wilson I can't hang around- I've got to get to the security station."

A sudden scuttering noise away to his left made James start. The noise came again and James went to investigate. He followed the noise into a store room, packed tight with shop window dummies. The door slammed shut behind him and James whipped around, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever prankster was responsible for this.

"Hey, if this is someone mucking about, come out now and we'll all have a good laugh and say no more about it."

No one emerged. Nobody except one of the dummies. Then another. And another, and another, until they completely surrounded James.

A small cool hand closed around James', he looked round and found himself staring at a small woman with a determined expression. "Run."

James barely registered the sense of deja vous he felt under the surprise that the diminutive woman was strong enough to drag him along with her, out of reach of the circle of pranksters and back towards the lift. The dummies followed in slow, ominous pursuit. James and the woman made it into the lift, but the dummies swarmed, like something out of a surprisingly terrifying, low budget zombie movie. One; wearing a peach dress with a pattern that looked like someone had thrown up on the shoulder; got its arm into the lift just as the doors closed and, with another astonishing feat of strength, the woman pulled the arm from the dummy's body and the door slid shut as if nothing had ever jammed them.

"Y-you pulled its arm off?" James said, stupidly.

"Yes I did," the woman nodded. John took a moment to process this, and to get a good look at the woman who had saved his life. She was older than him if the thin lines around her eyes and forehead were any indication and stood a good foot shorter than his own six foot two frame. Her black hair was restrained in a tight French plait and her dark heavy clothes: black jacket and jeans, purple shirt and black boots, put James in mind of combat fatigues.

"Ok, I'm guessing they weren't students judging by the solid plastic of that arm."

The woman stared at him, in pleasant surprise.

"I'm right aren't I?" he asked, feeling oddly pleased with himself- though that may have had something to do with the adrenalin rush.

"No, they weren't students," she confirmed. "In your place I'd have thought they were though."

"Pretty sensible conclusion I suppose." he shrugged. "Who, _what_ever they are, Wilson'll call the police when he finds them."

"Wilson?" she asked, the ghost of something passing briefly over her face. "Who's he then, caretaker?"

"Chief electrician."

"Wilson's dead." she told him, and stepped smartly out of the lift.

"That's just sick!" James declared, following her out.

"Doesn't make it any less true I'm afraid." she returned, pulling something thin and silvery from an inside pocket of her jacket. "Mind your eyes."

He did so, but wondered at the blue light and mechanical sounding hum which followed. Next thing he knew the woman was swanning off down the corridor.

"Just who are you then?" he demanded, confused and irritable as he trailed along in the woman's wake. "And that lot down there?"

"Would you believe me if I told you they were creatures made of living plastic?" she asked, not turning to look at him. "And that they were being controlled by a relay device on the roof?" She smirked at the look on his face. "Probably not, no. Anyway, no need to worry because I've got this."

James blinked as she pulled a matt black box from her pocket; a box that was too big to fit in her pocket. "Is that a bomb?"

"Yup." she nodded. "I'm gonna go up there and blow em up- I'll probably die in the process but don't worry about me- you just go home and have your bananas on toast or whatever it is you like."

"I'm the night watchman." he told her.

"Then I'm sorry mate, but I'm about to blow your job sky high." The woman stepped smartly out onto the fire escape and paused. "I'm the Wolf by the way, and you are?"

"James," said James. "James McCrimmon."

The woman, the Wolf apparently, looked genuinely surprised for a second, then a mask came down over her generally unremarkable features. "Nice to meet ya James McCrimmon, now run for your life!"

The door slammed shut behind her and James ran.

* * *

Half past nine the next morning found James on his sofa, job hunting. He wasn't holding out much hope of anything decent, and he wouldn't be able to get student finance to fund another attempt at working towards a degree...

The cat flap rattled.

James had lost his cat, Wolfie (a slightly scabby yellow animal who had suited no other name, no matter how many James had tried to christen it with) to a particularly nasty stray dog only a week ago and he had yet to cover the catflap. Setting his banged up old laptop aside, James got up, intent on chasing off whatever stray happened to be trying to get into his flat.

There was no cat, just that mad woman from the previous night, wearing an amused expression.

"Oh you would live here, wouldn't you." The Wolf said snarkily. Before James could ask what she meant by that, the small woman had produced the wand she had used to open the fire escape to Henricks' roof and activated it, muttering under her breath as she breezed past him into the flat, completely ignoring his cry of protest at her intrusion.

"Where are you, you little..."

* * *

The Wolf stood in the control room of the TARDIS, bathed in the jade light of the central column, lost in thought.

James McCrimmon. She had fully expected to meet a John Smith in the basement of Henrick's Department Store. The Rose part of her had been a little surprised to find a human version of the latest incarnation of the Doctor, minus the pinstripes, trench coat, and gravity defying hair instead of the irate northerner who had whisked her away from her mundane little life.

Their first adventure together had worked out almost exactly the way she recalled, at least as far as she could tell. There was a strange irony in the fact that James McCrimmon's best friend was Mickey Smith; although the Wolf would have preferred for him not to have to become an Auton, she had forced herself not to intervene, something that the Wolf was accustomed to, but hated doing nonetheless; sometimes things had to play out as they would.

James had saved her, as Rose had saved the Doctor; although instead of swinging to the rescue, James had used nothing more than a tennis ball thrown at the Auton who held the vial of anti-plastic.

And then he had turned down her offer to join her on the TARDIS.

'_The Doctor asked twice._' Rose's voice reminded her. '_Bet'cha if you go back and mention time travel he'll come around._'

The TARDIS hummed in agreement.

"Fantastic," The Wolf grinned and threw the TARDIS into reverse.

~v~

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_**Next Time: Does it need saying? End of the World.**_

_**Until then, please leave a comment, I love getting your feedback.**_


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